


Lions and Snakes

by linndechir



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Clothed Sex, Hair-pulling, M/M, Manhandling, Pre-Canon, Rough Sex, Size Difference, mentions of Charles Vane/Eleanor Guthrie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-19 23:33:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7382029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/pseuds/linndechir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teach is concerned about Vane's ongoing affair with Eleanor. Vane isn't sure what the hell his problem is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lions and Snakes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thedevilchicken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Львы и змеи](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9619958) by [Izzy_Grinch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Izzy_Grinch/pseuds/Izzy_Grinch)



> I hope this isn't too depressing, since it's set around the time when Vane betrayed Teach. If all else fails, we can just pretend that he goes on not to betray him after this? Either way I hope you enjoy this fic. :)

The deck was quiet when Charles returned from the port, except for a look-out or two who gave him a quick nod. Most of the men were on land, spending the night whoring and drinking and gambling after two successful hauls in a row. He'd had his own crew for a while now, his own ship, but as much as he savoured the freedom it brought, he and Teach still hunted together more often than not. Teach had always had a good nose for rich prey, and no matter what else they sometimes disagreed on, Charles would never tire of fighting besides him. That and Charles' own ship couldn't hold a candle to Teach's _Revenge_. Truth be told, and as much as it bothered him on some days, the _Revenge_ still felt more familiar than his own ship did.

He climbed down the stairs to the captain's cabin. No guards, and what would have been carelessness from any other captain was merely quiet confidence from Teach. Charles didn't bother to knock.

“You wanted to see me?”

Teach was standing by the large table, looking over maps, and didn't glance up when Charles came in. The cabin was dark safe for a small oil lamp on the table, but then Teach had always had good eyes. Sharp, calculating, knowing.

“I wanted to see you when the sun was still up. You took your time.” He raised his head now, his hands still resting on the table, giving the deceptive appearance that they were the same height. But his tone, while casual, wasn't that of a man speaking to an equal. Charles was closer to him than anyone else, but Blackbeard didn't _have_ equals.

“I'm not your lackey, nor your dog,” Charles said, surprising himself with the venom in his voice. “I don't come just because you whistle.”

For a moment Teach looked like he wanted to say something, something sharp and bitter, and Vane wished he would just fucking say what he had on his mind, but instead he simply straightened up, walked around the table to face Charles. That calculating look again, and then he breathed in deep. Charles narrowed his eyes, and the next moment Teach grabbed him by the wrist, pulled it up roughly and backed him into the next wall.

“You don't when you're with her.” Nothing casual anymore in his voice, in the sharpness on the last word. Eleanor. Of course Teach knew where he'd been, both because Teach _always_ knew and because there weren't a lot of other places Charles had gone to in the past months whenever they found their way back to Nassau. Much more recent was the fact that Teach seemed to mind. He'd never cared that Charles fucked other people.

“What the fuck is your problem?” Charles tried to yank his wrist free, but Teach's fingers were like iron bands around it. His back hit the wood of the hull and more than ever he felt Teach tower over him, caging him against it. He'd never been small, even as a child he'd always been big for his age, and as he grew up, he'd soon become used to looking down at other men. But then Teach had never been anything like other men.

“For now? I don't have one.” And then Teach's left hand was in his hair, fingers grabbing it tightly while he leant in closer. That touch wasn't like the iron grip on Charles' wrist, it was something else entirely, something they had done more and more rarely these last few months. Charles didn't know if it was because of Eleanor, or because of that pretty redhead Teach had been so fond of lately, or simply because they spent less time on the same ship. “I hope it's going to stay that way.”

There were a dozen things he could have said to that – that they wouldn't have a problem if Teach didn't create one, or that Teach already _was_ a problem as far as some people in Nassau were concerned. That he'd made himself a problem every time he refused to acknowledge that Charles wasn't the green boy he'd taken in anymore. But the pull on his hair made him groan, and arguing with Teach had always been frustrating – whether it was with words or fists or swords, Teach beat him every time.

Charles shifted his weight from one foot to the other, took his hand from the knife on his belt – as if he was actually going to use it – and put it on Teach's arm instead, the rich, thick fabric of his coat, the solid strength underneath. The corner of Teach's mouth quirked up, merely the beginning of a smile. Charles had assumed Teach wanted a fight, but it seemed he wanted something just a little bit different. Something that usually turned out to be a whole lot less frustrating.

“We're going to have a problem if you don't get on with it,” Charles said.

A dry, short laugh, an amused twinkle in his eyes, like he'd been waiting for a reaction and got the one he wanted. Teach had always been fast for a man his size, his hands moving quickly as they let go of Charles only to rip open his shirt and make equally fast work of his belt. A low groan when Charles finally touched him, one hand mirroring Teach's own touch and grabbing his hair roughly, the other going for his neck to pull him in and press his lips against Teach's in a bruising kiss.

The softness of his beard against Charles' scruff was as familiar as the sharp bite of teeth on his lips, the touch of those large hands, fingers digging into Charles' skin and pushing him where he wanted him with an ease that would have been a source of concern coming from anyone else. Another bite before Teach's lips moved over Charles' cheek, down to his neck where he bit down hard, bruising, and that was something new, like a need to mark him that had never really been there when Charles had been younger. When Charles had had no one but him. He wondered if Teach could still smell Eleanor's perfume on him.

He yanked Teach's head back by his hair, relishing that deep growl that would promise a world of pain to anyone else, but all it got Charles was a tightening of Teach's grip on his hips, his thigh, and then he lifted him up like he weighed nothing, lifted him up as easily as any girl, as easily as Charles had lifted Eleanor earlier that night. He'd long stopped being bothered by it.

“That what you wanted to see me for, captain?” Charles laughed on the last word; he hadn't called Teach that in earnest for years. The only response that got him was to get slammed down on the map table so hard it creaked and shook, and the sound reminded Charles of a night years ago, he'd barely had any hair on his face yet, in a shitty inn in a shitty harbour town the name of which he'd long forgotten, when they'd decided the ratty bed didn't look like it could hold them and fucked on the table instead, only for it to crush down underneath them. Charles had tried to pick splinters out of his back for a week after that and still not regretted it.

Before he could open his mouth to ask Teach if he still remembered that night he was being kissed again, bitten and mauled until his lips were sore. His hands were clawing at Teach's clothes, but even after years together he hadn't got any better at undressing him, fingers ineffectively pulling at buttons and clasps and eventually just settling for his belt, knowing that he could undo that with more success.

Teach's lips slid down over his throat, over to his shoulder to mouth at a scar he himself had left there, shortly after he'd taken Charles in, when he'd been teaching him how to fight. And Teach's lessons had always included pain, both for the sake of learning how to bear it and still keep fighting and as a motivator to be faster and smarter next time. Charles tightened his grip on Teach's hair, pushing him down a little further until Teach's lips found a half-healed cut on his chest – from the last time they'd done this, Teach's knife on Charles' throat, teasing him for what had seemed like an eternity before placing that sharp cut on his skin. He bit it now as if to reopen it, teach catching on the half-healed skin, and when he came up to crash his mouth against Charles' again, his lips tasted faintly of blood.

They hadn't been gentle about this in years, not since the first times, when Teach had been so intent on making sure Charles was getting what he wanted, until they'd both understood that what Charles wanted was precisely this, the scratches and the bites and the roughness. Charles had never actually bothered to sleep with other men, had only idly wondered if they would have been able to give him this as well, but he doubted it. It was like comparing a lion to common sheep, or dogs at best.

Charles wasn't quite hard yet again, not after what he'd been doing half the night, and though Teach must have noticed, he didn't say a word about it, spit in his hand and slicked them both up just enough to ease the way. It still burnt like hell when he pushed into him and Charles had never bothered to stay quiet around Teach, cursed a filthy stream of “fuck”s and half-serious threats at him that earned him a low chuckle against his neck, and then, “You ever not going to sound like you want me to stop?”

Teach never talked much when they did this, least of all when he was half inside of him, but when he did his voice dropped so low that Charles felt it more than he heard it, his chest vibrating even through the thick layers of his clothes, the butt of one gun Teach still had on his belt pressing into Charles' side. His thrusts were just on the right side of painful, just enough to make his muscles ache and his nerves burn.

Charles wrapped his legs around Teach's hips, and even though he'd gained so much more muscle since the first time they'd done this, it still took all of his strength to push himself and Teach up from the table, flip them over until they crashed down onto the hard floor, Charles on top of him, groaning in frustration when he felt Teach's cock slip out of him.

“Don't fucking move,” he growled, his hand on Teach's chest keeping him pressed down onto the floor while the fingers of the other curled around his cock, held it as he sank back down on it. The angle felt different like this, not better as such, just different, even if he did miss Teach's weight bearing down on top of him. His hand slid up until he could curl his fingers around Teach's throat, a useless threat when Teach could still break his arms like twigs. He didn't press down – that had actually got him a twisted wrist once that hadn't stopped hurting for weeks, years ago –, and Teach seemed to know he wouldn't because he stayed as relaxed as if he was sprawled on a chair with a glass of brandy, large hands settling on Vane's hips, bruising him, but not actually bothering to slow him down.

Charles closed his eyes as he fucked himself on Teach's cock, hard and fast and more impatient than he would have expected himself, considering that he'd already had everything a man could dream of that night. Teach's hands were steady and warm, sliding up over his sides, one of them up to the back of his neck to pull Charles down to him. He half expected a breathless kiss, but instead he just felt rough fingers curl at the back of his neck. There was a strange urgency in that touch, not the mere urgency of what they were doing, more like the urgency with which a sailor clung to a slick rope that was threatening to slip from his grasp, and Charles didn't himself dwell on that thought.

He ground down on him hard, drew one of those rare deep moans from Teach's lips, and that too intimate touch on Charles' neck moved up, fingers grabbing a fistful of hair again to give it a painful tug, just enough tension in his grip that Charles could feel it in his scalp, just underneath his skin.

They'd always understood each other best when they didn't need to talk, their bodies always moving like two halves of the same entity, whether they were fighting or fucking. Charles had never liked that there were problems in the world he couldn't solve with either.

Afterwards Teach pulled himself up slowly from the floor onto his chair, cleaning himself up almost leisurely before he tucked himself back in, never taking his eyes off Charles. Charles' hands were a little shaky as he dressed himself – as far as he could, considering that his shirt was half torn and would probably be better off burnt than mended.

He knew he could have stayed, could have invited himself to a drink, could have asked Teach about the maps he'd been studying when Charles had arrived. Or simply sat with him for a little while longer, either talking or simply enjoying the silence together like they'd done so many times before.

But Teach was looking at him like he knew something about him that Charles himself didn't know yet, and it was unsettling. He stalled on purpose, fiddling more with his breeches than he absolutely had to, to get a chance to figure it out. It wasn't anger, it wasn't concern – it was, and Charles only realised that as he was already about to turn away from him, suspicion. Not so much that Teach didn't trust him anymore, but that he wasn't sure anymore if he could.

Charles thought of everything Eleanor had ever said about Teach – that he was a danger to Nassau, that he saw himself as a king who didn't need to bow to anyone's rules, all those things that had made Charles admire him for as long as he'd known him. All those things that made sure that there could never be a truce between Teach and the Guthries. That look in Teach's eyes should have made him furious, but instead he wondered if Teach wasn't right to doubt him. To doubt them.

So he turned his back on him because staying would have meant facing that look, walked the few short steps to the door when Teach's voice stopped him.

“Charles.”

He'd got up from his chair again, smoothed out the map on the table, his hand lingering on it, his touch soft as if his fingers were still on Charles' skin. His eyes were on the oceans of the Caribbean, intent, almost as if he were looking for something.

“Do you remember what I once told you about women?”

“You told me a lot about women.” Charles had only half turned around, watched him intently. A small smile flitted over Teach's face, almost wistful.

“And you listened to precious little of it. I once told you that where women are involved, nothing lasts forever.” Now he looked up again. “The smarter the woman, the truer that holds. And Eleanor Guthrie is a very smart woman. She's certainly smarter than you.”

“What's your point?” He still couldn't shake the feeling that Teach knew something he didn't, but he knew the man well enough to see that Teach wasn't really in a sharing mood.

“That I hope you know what you're doing. When you invite a snake to your bed, you shouldn't be surprised when it bites you.”

Charles sneered at him, half considered going over and punching him in the face, but the last thing he needed to top off the night was a lost fight.

“If it does, I'm sure you'll be there to tell me you told me so,” he said instead, and didn't give Teach a chance to reply before he walked out and slammed the door behind himself.

Maybe it was still early enough to row back to Nassau.


End file.
